11.2. ROAD TO SEWER.
First to the Thieves Guild. From there we receive information that one of the visitors to the secret brothel in the sewers has an invitation. We go there, kill him and his wife, get a bunch of loot and an invitation. THEY ARE VERY STRONG. The wand of paralysis will help.
We go to the Duke's castle with an invitation.
11.2. Duke's castle.
There will be a battle. All named NPCs must survive. Sarevok runs. And we are running after him.
12. THE LAST DANCE. STEP-BROTHER I'M STUCK IN THE TEMPLE OF BAAL.
The location is certainly gorgeous, gloomy. There is no need to fight the crowd of killers at the entrance to the temple. To the left of the temple entrance lies the best armor in the game - but we don't need it. We enter in Temple in stealth.
We go into a corner and spam monsters with the summoning wand. We provoke Sarevok to spend all his buffs. First, we send the summons to the upper left corner - thereby, they will be stuck in one place.
And from approximately the same position as in the screenshot, we begin to spam scrolls of the cloudkill and a wand of fire into the corner of the location.
We lure the skeletons away one by one, killing them in a crowd with a summoning wand. There is only one Sarevok left. And he is remarkably paralyzed by the wand. He Die. Game over.
Let's continue our adventure of Mr. Universe.
SIEGE OF DRAGONSPEAR.
To be honest, as far as I know, the supplement doesn't have very good reviews. In fairness, I myself would give it 6.5/7 out of 10. There are too many stuffy battles and without stealth I would not go through this in my life. Everywhere there are hordes of enemies of 10-15 units. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a closed, narrow space or an open location. Marasmus.
Otherwise, an interesting plot, side quests are much higher above those in BG1, more points of interest, pleasing to the eye graphics and setting, rich picture and contrast. Well, there will be 10-15 crashes for sure.
In any case, this is all lyrics, let's go towards great adventures.
1. CHAPTER VII. SAREVOK DEAD.
We speak with Ammon, take the quest, open the tomb in the north, take another quest from the mummy. At first, in any case, you will have to complete all the quests that we see. Rude rushing, like in BG1, will not work - the plot is linear, many fights are inevitable.
We fight a little with the enemies near the bridge, we get to the script, Porias appears, we agree to the deal, we get
exp for each unkilled person. Comfortable.
1.1. FLOOR BELOW. DUNGEON. STEALTH WILL NOT SAVE ME AGAIN?
It was around this moment that I realized exactly what SoD was.
Such hordes of enemies will be everywhere, without exception. This is actually a quick gain of experience, then everything is just stealth.
The problem is that in this expansion, the conditional bat skeletons have an innate True Sight. My stealth doesn't work.
But no one is stopping me from still moving in stealth + using Haste. Or lure out only bats, beat them in a crowd and move on.
And these mice, like almost all the undead in the expansion, turn me into Nick Vujicic when I try to hit them. And as far as I remember, they have a huge APR. Overall it will be fun)
At this point, the main thing was to kill the horde in the center of the location. We attack her on the others at the entrance + spam our summon. We apply all the debuffs that we have and carefully kill them one by one. This should be enough.
It’s easier to skip all subsequent fights; this exp will be a HUGE waste of time and effort. It's not worth it.
We go west, negotiate with the mercenaries, open the door with the lever.
1.2. KORLAZS'S TOMB.
There are too many enemies. VERY.
My meta-brain came up with the idea of charming all enemies one by one with the Algerion cloak from STEALTH. Take them to a secluded corner and kill them with summons.
And so on until there are a minimum of enemies left. Korlazs is perfectly paralyzed by the wand.
We loot her room, turn in the mummy's quest, talk to Imoen and go upstairs.
P.S. I know that I missed a couple of quests and a secret. But overall, you can skip it; there’s nothing super important for me. Here's what I missed that is super important - I'll definitely tell you later)
2. BALDUR'S GATE.
The fact that he has changed is an understatement. Very beautiful, although it has become smaller in size. But it seems like a full-fledged living city.
We fight a little, then go down to the basement. We speak with the man who took our money + free the prisoner.
Let's go to Three Barrels for money. We do whatever we want (i mean quests) , we forgive the thieves, but we send them to prison. Delenda. Jaheira and Minsk (talk with all) We talk with Corwin about aristocrats.
We move to the Tavern. We get quests observation glasses (In the end, I never used them, although they are very important in a couple of places, for example in the coalition camp). Senna. We trade in the shop + sell everything unnecessary (except jewelry/gems).
We deal with the robbers, loot, and turn in the quest. We sleep and loot a box in the cellar. We agree with the Lady about provisions. We help two goners near
Flaming Fist. We speak with Tiax. We speak with Rashad. Lon. We speak with the captain. Imoen, stranger, Sky.
Essentially, we do everything we see and what we can reach. There's nothing complicated here, just regular social quests.
Before setting off on the main adventure, we buy a BOTTLESS BAG from Belegarm. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT.
3. CHAPTER VIII. WORLD MAP AVAILABLE.
The first step is to complete the Teleria quest. As a reward we get a good summon, which will be useful in the only essentially difficult battle in the game, which is truly difficult and can take many hours due to this complexity - DEFENSE OF THE COALITION CAMP. This artifact for summoning the Golem is vital for everyone who does not have a Mage in their class. As well as a couple more similar artifacts.
We speak with all named NPC. We sell everything we have to the merchant near the house, steal it back, and recharge the wands. We buy a wand of fire.
We loot the house, communicate with the barker, and stop Baeloth from organizing barbaric battles.
There are a couple of spider squads in the location - they give you a lot of experience. We can farm this.
3.1. DWARVEN DIG SITE.
We speak with the dwarf at the entrance, take the quest. We help the others inside, talk to them, return to the dwarf at the entrance - we persuade him to return. We save the giant in the north of the location. There is no point in cleaning the location completely. Go ahead. Towards dozens of reboots.
3.2. REPOSITORY OF UNDEATH.
This was the first call. A bell called - I’m not releasing this crap, I’ll probably skip this mod and import the character, won’t take the challenge and play for my own pleasure. But I didn't give up. It’s more likely that my meta-brain didn’t give up. He and his crazy ideas, which somehow miraculously always work, did not let me give up.....
These were my first attempts to break through a horde of undead, which inflicts HOLD or PETRIFICATION on impact. If my memory serves me right, there are slightly less than HUNDRED enemies here in this location.
Multiply this by BETTER CALL HELPS FROM SCS and get constant reinforcements from other rooms.
Okay, the first two rooms can be cleaned using standard methods - great malison, webs, slow, glitterdust, fireballs from the wand on top and spam of summons from the wand. Further BETTER CALL HELPS works very strongly.
Another option is a wand of polymorph and hold undead.
It is advisable, by some miracle, to kill as many undead as possible in the third room, in the center of the location, without ultimately disturbing the rest. By the way, this is what she looks like:
This is difficult, but thanks to the combination described above and constant re-entering the location with rest, it is achievable. The hardest part is yet to come.
Basically, we need to find three quest artifacts, they seem to be called scepters.
Let's go to the northern room and aggro this simply HUGE horde of undead, which we'll probably have to fight all day in real life.
We distract them with the summoning rod, try to grab all the quest items + use the throne and run away. First, it is advisable to drink an acceleration potion and use a mirror image.
This is what the room looks like:
As you can see, fighting here for the sake of experience is definitely a nervous breakdown.
There are essentially three steps left.
We go into a diagonal room with columns and a riddle. On stealth. Aggro everyone in this room to yourself, distract them with a summoning rod and two webs, if desired. We use the columns in the correct order AS FAST as possible - Winter - 3, autumn - 1, summer - 4, spring - 2. Access to the main boss - the Lich Coldheart will open.
It is important to activate the cut-scene and run away from there to the dwarves for help.
We talk to the main dwarf, tell everything, if we don’t have enough charisma to convince, he will attack us. Fortunately, we helped his friend the giant and he will take our side. By collective belief, we receive from him essentially a one-shot artifact against liches, which will allow us to remove all buffs from him and impose a swarm of insects on top. Essentially the lich will turn into a mannequin.
Now comes the hardest part...
We have two rooms left with the undead, that's about 30-40 units. On stealth we run into the room in front of the Lich. We distract them with the summoning rod, and take the summons themselves as far away from the room as possible. We run into the room with the lich and close the door behind us. You need to have time to click through the dialogue with him, put the artifact received from the dwarves on him and kill him.
Until this moment, it is advisable to cover yourself with all the buffs that you have in order to kill the lich quickly, we have VERY LITTLE time. We need to manage to simultaneously kill the lich and take the Phylactery from the room nearby (essentially his soul), at the same time, so that the horde of undead next to us does not have time to kill the summon that is distracting them. Hard.
By the way, this is what a lich looks like:
I wonder what I would do without this dwarven artifact? After all, he has spells of 7-8-9 levels.
In addition, it is advisable to try to open the door to the fiery room while in stealth and escape. Just open it, you don’t need to do anything else.
The hardest thing is to run out of the lich's room with the phylactery and not get stuck in the horde of undead. If it works, we run into the fire room and throw the phylactery into the fire. Again, it's important not to get stuck in the undead while we're trying to run out of these narrow passages. That's All. One of the two most difficult quests in the game has been completed. I spent about six to seven hours on this one. Despite the fact that I play at 90 FPS.
P.S. If you want to remain a healthy and adequate person and not get a STROKE while defending the coalition camp, this quest MUST BE COMPLETED.
You will get very dense and strong allies, which I personally used in the third wave. Without them there is nothing to catch there.
IMPORTANT. On the other hand, if you don't mind tarnishing your reputation and spoiling your morals, you can side with the Lich Coldheart...
I haven’t tried it, but based on the entries on BG Wikipedia, you need to get all the dwarven necklaces in the previous location and kill the rest. As a result, instead of dwarves, you will receive COLDHART'S LICH AND AN UNDEAD TROOP, which will help you defend the coalition camp. I wonder if they are stronger than the dwarves? Probably yes.
3.4. BRIDGE.
And then I realized that the entire add-on was built entirely on scripts. All you need to do is fight a little and the script with the cut-scene of Caelar’s appearance will work. I saw on YouTube how people spent hours fighting with this very strong squad, killed it outside the script trigger zone and the cut scene did not appear. A spectacular sight.
4. CHAPTER IX. FOREST OF TROLL CLAWS.
We steal loot from the orcs on the right, help refugees in the north, and Jaheira in the east. We go to the cave in the northwest. We loot and leave. We do everything in stealth, according to the classics.
Are there any arachnophobes in the chat? I have a gift for you.
4.1. WYVERN FOREST.
We completely loot the dragon's lair on stealth, just like Bilbo Baggins, and by the way, here's a reference:
We also pass through the Bugbears' lair. We loot everything in stealth.
3.4. BRIDGE.
And then I realized that the entire add-on was built entirely on scripts. All you need to do is fight a little and the script with the cut-scene of Caelar’s appearance will work. I saw on YouTube how people spent hours fighting with this very strong squad, killed it outside the script trigger zone and the cut scene did not appear. A spectacular sight.
4. CHAPTER IX. FOREST OF TROLL CLAWS.
We steal loot from the orcs on the right, help refugees in the north, and Jaheira in the east. We go to the cave in the northwest. We loot and leave. We do everything in stealth, according to the classics.
Are there any arachnophobes in the chat? I have a gift for you.
4.1. WYVERN FOREST.
We completely loot the dragon's lair on stealth, just like Bilbo Baggins, and by the way, here's a reference:
We also pass through the Bugbears' lair. We loot everything in stealth.
4.2. I don't know what to call this location, but let it be....
\m/ _ - LAIR OF THE CULTISTS - _ \m/
There will be at least 2-3 very difficult and interesting battles. And a lot of experience.
We talk to the woman in the cage and get information. Let's go first to Zaitar.
He is EXTREMELY STRONG. But my Meta-Brain dealt with it very easily. As it turns out, he transforms perfectly into a squirrel:
Zaitar: security, protect me!
Very comical, considering that I managed to turn him into a squirrel before the dialogue.
Security, protect me! And then pet him and give him some hamster food! And turn on Chip 'n Dale, I'm stressed!
Here we got away with minimal expenditure of resources and nerves. It will be more interesting later.
4.3. BATTLE WITH SUPER MEGA OCTOPUS-ANKEG.
Nifilid... This is a huge colossus, as I understand it, it has the skeleton and behavior of Ankheg. In addition, this is a high-level magician who spams Mordekainen's swords, up to 5 of them calmly. In addition, due to behavior like Ankheg - he is constantly underground, it is difficult to cast spells on him. And in addition, it is UNREALISTIC to dodge the battle with him. He is scripted to jump after us like a graboid throughout the location.
It also leaves behind poisonous puddles with high damage. In general, we distract Mordekainen’s swords with our summons and try to catch him after a pause when he is on the surface. Greater Malison + Wand of Polymorph. This is the only way he dies, no other way. You'll have to spend some time rebooting, but what can you do, there's no way to avoid the battle.
You should have seen my eyes when I saw how much experience they gave for it! 20000!!!
The next fight is with Akanna. Greater Malison + Wand of Paralyse and kill her. Her summons are very strong (Ariel Servant's), it is better not to touch them, there is no point in eliminating them.
4.4. MAIN BASTARD AND HIS COMPANY.
The last battle remains - Illithid and his company. We take them into a narrow corridor, block the passage with meat from summons from the wand, throw all the debuffs we have, Greater Malison, slow, 2 web, glitterdust, hold person. We periodically refresh the meat, paralyze them with a rod one at a time and kill them. All.
P.S. I forgot to mention that if we free the occultist from the cage, I don’t remember whether she will give us a key or information. But it’s better to release him like the others.
After moving to another location and resting, there will be an encounter - we help the green dragon. And one more, but I don't remember which one.
4.5. BOARESKYR BRIDGE.
We go straight to the liberators, the rest will come later, although there are many points of interest. Here we act as a double agent. We steal everything, save Dorn +6k exp.
If we give away the guard stone, it will be a bad deed. Let's use it ourselves!
4.6. BRIDGEFORT.
We speak with Khalid. We speak with Winan Hess last. We're skipping Nira. We speak with Hess. We put three bodies on the altar. Let's run to Wichand,
We select the scroll and go back. We steal everything from Tirrim. For myself . We complete the Fear quest and talk about our dead sister. We are looking for a thief
jewelry from corpses. We find Omori's corpse, kill the zombies, take the chain and head. We'll take down Junia, but it's advisable to rest before that.
We speak with Khalid, return, notify the Flaming Fist. To have a dialogue with Otilda, you need to scroll through the option of surrendering the fortress. Shit scripts again.
4.7. SIEGE OF BRIDGEFORT.
In such a difficult challenge, ALL ALLIES will die 100%. As usual, we throw a ton of our magical debuffs, spam wands, paralyze, kill. Personally, even this wasn’t enough for me - I had to aggro several enemies on myself and kill them quietly.
The second battle in this location near the barrels on the bridge - we do it the same way.
5. CHAPTER X. COALITION CAMP.
Waizahb - fence good trader. We sell him everything we stole. Reloading the wands.
Quests: Unusual cold. Help with training for beginners. We speak with Marshall. Safana - Traitor. Skye's disappearance. Barrel of Boom and Potion of Horror at the entrance. Wilhelmina.
5.1. BLOODY GROVE.
We talk to Onorot, we don’t go into the basement, there’s nothing interesting there. We find the scroll of the weak earth elemental in the upper right corner. Lol, it will definitely be useful to us. We kill the basilisk, give back the claw.
5.2. UNDERGROUND RIVER. OUTER LANDS.
Potion of invulnerability in the north. We become the leader of the ogres and win them for friendship + reinforcements. We help druids through dispel. They will help us in battle
through the gate to the Underground River. We go for a fight, open the gate using stealth and go inside. There is no point in fighting, there are TOO many opponents. SoD seriously sins and begins to infuriate.
5.3. UNDERGROUND RIVER. INSIDE.
We put on the Stone Vine. We’ll take down the mage, we won’t take out the water elementals, and there’s no need to. We speak with Nereida. Now we have friends among the water nation (it doesn't affect ANYTHING).
Place the barrel. We speak with Irenicus. We go south and put the enchanted seed in the tree to the Dark Druids. Stealth is good, but we will be stuck between the tree and invisible enemies. Teleportation Field will save us.
I didn’t complete the quest to free the dragon; I just couldn’t handle the fight with a bunch of high-level magicians.
We go north, to the entrance to the next location. Aggro the guards, open the gate, drink the invisibility potion and go further.
5.4. LAIR OF THE SHINING ONES.
We free Slugg and get information. Let's go to the priest. You can recharge everything from him through theft. It’s easier to sell absolutely everything and just steal it back necessary. Let's help Rhonda. We look for wine, give it to the ogres, and go upstairs.
5.5. DRAGONSPEER CASTLE BASEMENT.
Important. Before entering the location, we use stealth. So, after the dialogue with Belben, we will not be attacked and we will have a maneuver to move.
He doesn't see us. Let's help Bjarne. We find the key. We free Daeros. Before coming here we buy scrolls
great restoration from the priest (Looks like there were traps with level drain) . We loot the first chest, there are scrolls of buffs and debuffs that are important for us. We infect the water, west, warehouse, in the corner of the barrel.
We drink a potion of protection from magic and loot the chest with the crown. Let's go. A good Crown, we use it to remember the spells before the main battle.
We use stealth again and leave. We may get stuck in one place again - at the exit from LAIR OF THE SHINING ONES. Teleportation Field will save us.
5.6. DEAD MAN'S LAND.
Negotiations, no matter what they choose, there will be violence. On the way, we'll stop by the entrance of Dragonspear Castle and save Skye.
Before we move on to the defense of the coalition camp, I would like to clarify something.
ONLY AFTER I completed BG1+SoD, with the help of BG Wikipedia, I realized that I had missed some of the quests with important items that would have helped me forgive this HARD stage at this difficulty level. I think it's important to outline what exactly I missed. WITH THESE THINGS EVERYTHING WILL BE MUCH EASIER. YOU CAN AVOID HEART ATTACK AND STROKE:
1. STONE ALLY.
From Teleria quest. I made a note about it after finishing it. In fact, I didn't do it at all. On this difficulty, this golem can tank for a VERY long time. MUSTHAVE.
2. AMULET OF COOL SUMMONING ANKHEGS.
They can be called beyond the barricades, into choke points, into places that no one can reach, eventually hordes of enemies will aggro on them and will not be able to reach them.
Like HERE.
THIS IS A SCREENSHOT FROM MY TESTS. I TESTED IF A CLERIC/RANGER WITH DRUID SPELLS UNLOCKED COULD DEFEND A COALITION CAMP, THIS IS NOT A CHEAT, I WENT THE GAME ON F/M/T:
A friend of mine from discord and I were arguing about whether Priest could defend the coalition camp in such conditions. The cleric of Lathander failed. Basically the same as Warrior/Cleric. But the Cleric/Ranger did. This was the best battle in my entire experience in video games. Someday I’ll tell you about this experience as a bonus, later.
In the end it should have turned out like in the screenshot. Summoning ankhegs ADVANCE beyond the barricades, the first wave begins - they run towards the barricades and cannot overcome them - essentially ankhegs behind textures. But everything is legal and fair.
3. RING OF SUMMONING MEPHITS. They are not very strong, but they can drop 4 at a time. Like tanking meat if you have limited resources (anyone except a mage, the mage has 4 summoning wands of 100 charges, he doesn’t care at all). As far as I remember, it recharges after resting.
4. MYCONID SUMMONING ARTIFACT.
If a 1d4 die rolls a 3 or 4, they can tank long enough to cause chaos with their confusion attacks. A VERY useful summon.
5. DETONATION ARROWS.
Probably the main thing I forgot about.
Essentially a fireball from a shot. And I stood there like an idiot and spammed 1 fireball per round. But with arrows, count four.
You will say that you still need to hit them, have a high THAC0. I'll tell you a secret that shocked me - THEY ALWAYS HIT.
4 FIREBALLS PER ROUND.
6. POTION OF ABSORBPTION.
Almost the entire first wave, the entire third and half of the fourth wave consist of crushing damage to us and our allies and our summons. The potion gives us -10 additional armor from the crusher. I used it, but it was of little use.
BUT.
But I didn't know that it STACKS WITH ITSELF. -20 AC for two game hours. When I tested this on Cleric/Ranger I was even able to fight enemies for miles and tank for a very long time. + full healing from the durlag cup.
It was much easier with two potions. Drink both at once, they will no longer be useful to you after this battle.
6.1. JUGGLING BELTS.
Not a very important point, but it can help - juggling. Juggling belts of resistance to physical damage.
Periodically, for min-max, I juggled belts for suitable damage. In the fourth wave, a suitable belt was worn against the archers. On the first one, I still preferred against the slashing, because it was already -20 AC from the crushing damage. And so on.
7. DEN OF THIEVES QUEST.
A quest, if completed correctly, we will have an additional squad of thieves. I didn't complete it. Alas.
NOW keep in mind that I defended the F/M/T camp WITHOUT these 8 things.
I believe that I had the right to do this. After all, I completed BG1 + SoD for the FIRST TIME. Fortunately, the experience of playing BG2 and isometric RPGs in particular gave me the knowledge and experience to pass BG1 + SoD right from this tough challenge.
6. PROTECTION OF THE COALITION CAMP.
To be honest, the expansion itself is ABSOLUTELY NOT BALANCED FOR PLAYING WITH LEGACY OF BHAAL.
In addition, this quest is full of idiotic scripts and logical errors that ruin attempts to complete the quest without wasting tons of time.
6.1. First of all, there is no point in setting up skull traps in advance. THEY WILL NOT WORK WHEN THE FIRST WAVE APPEARS. Although no, they will work. But if you fail to repel the first wave the first time, the skull traps will not work the next time you reload. Idiocy.
6.2. Secondly, between waves there may be no time for preparation at all. That is, the wave ended, I talked to the main NPC and A SECOND LATER THE MESSENGER RUNNED AND ACTIVATED THE SECOND WAVE. Sometimes there was no time to rest with Dosya, not to mention new summons, updating buffs and potions. And it was like this all the time. I had to run around the camp without activating the dialogue script. Complete nonsense.
SCREENSHOT FROM MY TESTS, IT DOES NOT RELATE TO THE CHALLENGE. Conversation with the main NPC, a second - the messenger comes running. I didn't have time to do anything.:
6.2.1. But it happened the other way around: you did everything you needed between wave and waited 20 seconds for the messenger to come running. The summons have already lost half their life time, the buffs are running out and the messenger comes running. Shit.
6.3. Third. Archers with fire arrows are always taken to the first wave. Because we will have to fight trolls, we need fire, everything is logical. But why do archers who are in a camp under siege, where there are tons of shells, arrows and bolts in barrels around, have SO FEW of them. SO LITTLE THAT WITHIN A 2 MINUTES AFTER THE WAVE STARTED, THEY RUNNED TO FIGHT HUGE TROLLS AND OGRES IN CLOSE COMBAT. WITH DAGGERS. FUCK.
6.4. FOURTH. If you fog up properly and after the wave you still have living soldiers, they will disappear. They will not go to the fire, wait out the remaining waves and fight in the final fourth. They will simply disappear. Your work will not be rewarded in any way. After many hours of trying, I still had live shooters and wizard killers. They disappeared immediately. They were not in the fourth wave. Shit.
6.5. FIFTH. If at least one enemy soldier runs behind you, being blinded, in panic, confused, under the influence of a berserker, a swarm of insects, it doesn’t matter - he activates the script and dialogue, saying that our defenses have been broken through, we retreat to the fire. THIS WILL LAUNCH THE OTHER THREE WAVES IN ALTERNATIVE RIGHT INTO OUR FACE. WELL WHAT THE CRAP. HOW COULD THIS BE INVENTED? BECAUSE OF ONE ENEMY. BECAUSE OF ONE THING.
SCREENSHOT FROM MY TESTS, IT DOES NOT RELATE TO THE CHALLENGE.
I still had a few enemies left to kill in the first wave. One of them, in a panic because of a swarm of insects, without which Cleric/Ranger cannot defense on any of the waves, run behind me and launched another idiotic script. Another reload and wasted time:
Otherwise, these were the most grandiose and interesting battles. But the scripts and serious logical errors sometimes confused me and really pissed me off. Fortunately, after defending the camp, it was a very easy hike.
Let's move on to the actual defense of the camp.
7. DEFENSE. 4 WAVES OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. BUT WHAT IS MORE OF THIS?
To be fair, on the day I got to this quest, it seemed to me that this was definitely a skip. If I managed to get out in the Repository of Undeath, here it seemed to me that it was simply UNREAL. I spent about five or six hours exactly. But when I succeeded, I certainly got high. But don’t forget about stupid scripts and logical errors - without them I would have spent three times less time.
7.1. PREPARATION.
We can talk to the only merchant available to us before defending. We have 30 seconds, otherwise he will run away. It is better to buy all the fighter potions that he has, heroism, power, giant strength, absorption, magic potions against magic and with a guaranteed saving throw. The last potion on the list will be VERY useful.
7.2. FIRST WAVE. ARCHERS AGAINST TROLLS.
IN ADVANCE we summon 5 monsters from the summoning wand directly to the respawn of the first wave. This will distract them from us while we cast debuffs. In this order:
1. WEB.
2. GREATER MALISON.
3. UPDATE TANKING MEAT WITH SUMMON WAND.
4. WEB.
5. SLOW.
6. MEAT.
7. CLOUDKILL + CLOUDKILL AGAIN.
8. SPAM THE WAND OF FIRE. RENEWING THE MEAT.
There is no point in feeling sorry for allied shooters. They are stupid idiots. Who takes so few arrows with him to defend the camp? In any case, they will disappear in a script after the battle, even if they remain alive. We don't feel sorry for anyone.
In general, after this list of spells, no one will remain alive.
7.3. SECOND WAVE. WIZARD SLAYERS AGAINTS HIGH-LEVEL MAGES.
The list is basically the same. Only we should buff ourselves in advance for close combat and drink a potion of protection from magic. So there is a chance that we will not be dispelled.
And the second potion, no less important - which gives us a guaranteed victory when checking a saving throw. It will allow us, being HASTED, to run through the web and not get entangled. The freedom potion in this regard cancels our HASTE.
In addition, due to the guaranteed wins on saving throws, we do not take damage from two cloudkills. Cool idea?
We don’t feel sorry for anyone, neither our own nor others. Even if one of the allies remains alive, they will still disappear. Forget it, don’t skimp on manpower.
7.4. THIRD WAVE. DWARFS ARE AGAINST APPEARING TO BE THE FATEST CLERICS IN THE WORLD.
Look what the game offers us, to be honest, I was shocked by the amount:
They all have 200-300 HP, heavy armor, shields, blunt weapons, cleric buffs, sanctuary, they constantly spam mass healing and silence at me.
The first attempts were in vain. The enemies are TOO fat. After some time, I managed to kill the main boss of this wave right away and somehow it became much easier. Most likely she had major buffs. I spent the most time on this wave.
7.5. FOURTH WAVE. GRIMGORE.
Again, the first attempts were accompanied by the complete erasure of me and my allies into dust.
Next, I tried to cast webs in advance, at the spawn location, from stealth.
In the end, 100% of all allies die.
I'm left alone against 20-30 enemies. Luckily they were stuck like a sandwich:
If you bring them to such a position as in the screenshot, when they are all together next to each other, then you will simply spam the summoning wand, then one fireball from the fire wand, then again the summoning wand, right at the end of the summoners’ life.
This sequence was just enough to make them get distracted by the summons, throw a fireball and refresh the tanking meat and throw the ball again. As a result, the script is triggered and the liberators escape. We won!
P.S.
GRIMGORE. To be honest, I didn’t understand who it was. his model was simply huge compared to the others. A huge knight with a shield and flail, he looked intimidating. He also liked to cast Blade Barrier + Sanctuary. Damn lamer!
In fact, if you kill the magician first on this wave, whose name, if translated from the Russian localization - BOLD PUNCHER, then it will be much better. This beast can throw Insect Plague at our army. This is RELOAD 100%
8. CHAPTER XI. SIEGE OF DRAGONSPEAR CASTLE.
Then everything is very easy, you can hit the keyboard with your face and you will complete this add-on to the end.
In the key battle, we just stand and hand out buffs/debuffs. There will be enough of them for our army to win. We can open a cage with trolls for the sake of a funny dialogue. We can challenge Ashatiel to a duel.
She can be won easily - we just call summons and wait for her to fail her saving throw against paralysis. By the way, as far as I understand, she is Deva, like an HLA priest.
8.1. DRAGONSPEAR CASTLE.
Let's go inside. There will be no fighting. We watch the cut-scene and go down to .....
9. CHAPTER XII. AVERNUS. NINE HELLS.
9.1. BRIDGE.
We skip the first floor. Let's go straight to the second one. It is advisable to get rid of the first pack of demons. It will be hard. You need to divide the battle into two, take some away with summons, debuff others and kill them with one charge of the paralysis wand.
TRICK.
The battle will be very long. The only way to get a save is to run away from the location and return. This way we will at least have autosave.
Again, we kill them one by one, they are very fat, preferably with a wand of paralysis. Next, we go to the door, skip the cut-scene, talk to the demon, accept his challenge, run away to the beginning of the location. Again we divide the battle, again we kill everyone one by one with the rod of summoning and paralysis. It is enough to leave 2-3 and the demon will say that we have passed the test and can choose a reward. Thank God, the location was too stuffy before the final.
By the way, we won't need the reward.
9.2. ELEVATOR.
Quite an atmospheric location actually. But I would cut the number of elevator battles in half.
We drink ALL POTIONS OF HEROISM.
I hope the fact that I threw the turnip juice out of my inventory won't ruin the boss fight for me.
Well, other potions as well. We hang Keel's helmet on our head. Durlag Cup. We use the elevator. Let's fight. After the last fight on the elevator, we update the buffs and potions, and put the scroll of breaking through magical resistance into quick access. We give ourselves resistance Abjuration school of magic (the final boss, after talking with us, will immediately try to dispel us).
10. BELHIFET.
Boss from the first Icewind Dale.....
We're playing solo, so we give him Caelar. In return, he does us a favor and kills a high-level mage ally. It's better for us.
Belhifet...1100 health, armor value and THAC0 on LoB are simply cosmic. Spam demon summons every few rounds.
I didn’t know what to do at all. My summons, with whom I fought in the elevator, did not go with me to Belhifet’s lair. The boss sees through stealth.
There is no way to defeat him in a fair melee fight, despite my 300 health and a bunch of potions I drank.
For the third time in this expansion, I’m starting to think that, in principle, I can skip the challenge. I really lost it this time. If in the Repository of Undeath I still had some ideas, in the coalition camp too, then here there are SIMPLY NO IDEAS.
BUT I REMEMBERED HIM. HE HELPED ME THE WHOLE GAME. SAVED ME A LOT OF TIME AGAINST SUPER STRONG BOSSES....
MEET THE ROD OF TRANSFORMATION INTO A SQUIRREL!
You say, Universe, are you an idiot? I'll answer you - no, I'm a genius.
10.1. APOGEE OF THE HUMAN META-BRAIN.
We reduce Belhifet's resistance to magic by 20% in order to have at least some chance of reducing his saving throws with the help of Greater Malison.
We use Greater Malison.
We use Wand of Polymorph. We see this.
His health dropped from 1100 to 5. Why? This is how the wand works. Belhifet CANNOT be turned into a squirrel, he is immune to transformation. But....
An explanation of this miracle from knowledgeable people from this forum:
""The standard demon/devil immunity item grants immunity to polymorph effects. However, the wand isn't just a polymorph effect; it's several effects combined. In addition to the actual polymorph, the wand sets base AC to 10, gives 100% casting failure for wizard and priest spells, sets maximum HP to 5, sets strength to 3, and overrides the target's weapon with the squirrel weapon that deals 1d2 slashing damage.
Unless there's a specific immunity in play, all of those other effects will apply if you can get the wand through his other resistances. The demon immunity item does grant that immunity to Polymorph Other, but not to the want.
One caveat on that HP adjustment - the game won't let any creature have lower maximum hit points than its level. Belhifet would actually end up at 5/N hit points, where N is his level.""
Ultimately, Belhifet is left with health units and dies from any spitting. In my case, twice in a row - from my own summons. Here's the evidence:
He received 9 piercing damage from his own summon. The last line describes his dying cry. I think you recognized the font and color)
That's all. A little ingenuity and everything worked out. The same cleric, by the way, one-shots Belhifet with Slay Living.
To be fair, I don't see anything prejudicial in my method of killing the boss. There is a player in the hall of fame of this challenge who unlocked the summon limit in order to complete SoD as a Lathander cleric. So my method of killing Belkhfet compared to this... is just child's play, not a cheat/exploit.
11. CHAPTER XIII. PLOT TWISTS. END OF THE GAME.
Several walks, plot twists and text. In principle, we can import the character.
P.S. In conclusion, I would like to say that this addition had the chance to be excellent, and not just average. If it weren’t for the constant crashes, one of which I caught in the LAST VIDEO SCENE, and a constant crash. Logical errors, disgusting scripts, the number of enemies is enough to upgrade one character to HLA, or even higher!
Someone told me that the add-on was made inspired by SCS, supposedly a more hardcore add-on. But still there is a measure for everything. I didn't see any complexity here. It’s just very stuffy and crap with huge packs of enemies. It was as if a child had run through a sand castle and left behind a pile of sand made up of enemies.
BUT in the end I liked it overall. I would give this add-on a 7/10
Forgot to mention the mods used, besides SCS:
1. Unfinished Business. I use this too in BG2. Legal cut content that was in the game.
2. Dragonspear UI. I use this too in BG2. It is more convenient and beautiful + makes the picture better.
3. EEEx + Bubble Spell Menu. I ise this too in BG2. A new, convenient spell panel and viewing of applied buffs and debuffs on yourself and the enemy.
In general, everything is legal, without cheats, WEIDU.log is saved, there are saves, I can post it if you want, if you don’t believe me
ANYWAY, HALF the way has been completed. Let's go to BG2....
Love the wand of polymorph action @Universe , well done! I still keep learning in this game after many years of playing.
After finishing this, I regretted that I kept putting it off. + 500,000 experience at the start of BG2 will help a lot. Additionally, this playthrough opened my eyes to the true gameplay of Baldur's Gate. It was cool.
Added your F/M/T into the list of current runs @Universe. Keep on rolling. Until the end.
Any other runs in progress or finished?
I need some information from you. I see in the hall of fame you have a run on Totemic Druid18 dual to Fighter.
Can you share how you loop exp in BG 2?
I want to try avenger 18-20/fighter through earth elemental form next time.
Added your F/M/T into the list of current runs @Universe. Keep on rolling. Until the end.
Any other runs in progress or finished?
I need some information from you. I see in the hall of fame you have a run on Totemic Druid18 dual to Fighter.
Can you share how you loop exp in BG 2?
I want to try avenger 18-20/fighter through earth elemental form next time.
one of the infamous XP loops is the wand of wonder (has a chance of petrifying that cannon be stopped) on the red dragon. It gives 64.000 XP pr. try. The wand has 50 charges, which should yield 15-18 succesfull times the said xp. The wand can be recharged for further XP.
Another one is a place in the unseeing rye quest, where sleeping can spawn a 9.000 xp Gauths that the shield of balduran can help you with.
Added your F/M/T into the list of current runs @Universe. Keep on rolling. Until the end.
Any other runs in progress or finished?
I need some information from you. I see in the hall of fame you have a run on Totemic Druid18 dual to Fighter.
Can you share how you loop exp in BG 2?
I want to try avenger 18-20/fighter through earth elemental form next time.
one of the infamous XP loops is the wand of wonder (has a chance of petrifying that cannon be stopped) on the red dragon. It gives 64.000 XP pr. try. The wand has 50 charges, which should yield 15-18 succesfull times the said xp. The wand can be recharged for further XP.
Another one is a place in the unseeing rye quest, where sleeping can spawn a 9.000 xp Gauths that the shield of balduran can help you with.
Thank you very much for the information) Of course, I’m not sure that I will still do this, because as my tests have shown, Avenger 18-20/Fighter is not particularly strong, but still there is not much choice for replaying this challenge.
Added your F/M/T into the list of current runs @Universe. Keep on rolling. Until the end.
Any other runs in progress or finished?
I need some information from you. I see in the hall of fame you have a run on Totemic Druid18 dual to Fighter.
Can you share how you loop exp in BG 2?
I want to try avenger 18-20/fighter through earth elemental form next time.
one of the infamous XP loops is the wand of wonder (has a chance of petrifying that cannon be stopped) on the red dragon. It gives 64.000 XP pr. try. The wand has 50 charges, which should yield 15-18 succesfull times the said xp. The wand can be recharged for further XP.
Another one is a place in the unseeing rye quest, where sleeping can spawn a 9.000 xp Gauths that the shield of balduran can help you with.
Thank you very much for the information) Of course, I’m not sure that I will still do this, because as my tests have shown, Avenger 18-20/Fighter is not particularly strong, but still there is not much choice for replaying this challenge.
There is a learning experience in playing the game to an end. You have to find solutions amd think of strategy that might help you in the next game. So stick to it
I off course always end up with restartis, and scrap my charname - so I never practice what I preach….
Added your F/M/T into the list of current runs @Universe. Keep on rolling. Until the end.
Any other runs in progress or finished?
I need some information from you. I see in the hall of fame you have a run on Totemic Druid18 dual to Fighter.
Can you share how you loop exp in BG 2?
I want to try avenger 18-20/fighter through earth elemental form next time.
one of the infamous XP loops is the wand of wonder (has a chance of petrifying that cannon be stopped) on the red dragon. It gives 64.000 XP pr. try. The wand has 50 charges, which should yield 15-18 succesfull times the said xp. The wand can be recharged for further XP.
Another one is a place in the unseeing rye quest, where sleeping can spawn a 9.000 xp Gauths that the shield of balduran can help you with.
Thank you very much for the information) Of course, I’m not sure that I will still do this, because as my tests have shown, Avenger 18-20/Fighter is not particularly strong, but still there is not much choice for replaying this challenge.
There is a learning experience in playing the game to an end. You have to find solutions amd think of strategy that might help you in the next game. So stick to it
I off course always end up with restartis, and scrap my charname - so I never practice what I preach….
Well, so far I’m happy with everything - my F/M/T copes with everything in BG2. I even had to install a tweak that nerfed Mislead and Project Image - these spells are too strong and break the game. In general, the magician looks like a god compared to the cleric. So my next playthrough will be Cleric/Ranger 100% with Druid spells unlocked. Purely for fun.
good idea @Universe
It should be fun. I dont touch anything that doesnt get 1/2 par at level 7 and 13 so I get you….
There are many interesting combinations in the hall of fame, but I would not dare to repeat them. My time and nerves are precious to me) I prefer the proven option. In addition, I’m not sure that they completed everything without third-party mods, such as the Lathander cleric from the hall of fame - with unlock summon limit. And such things allow you to generally hit the keyboard with your face and complete the game with ease.
Therefore, I’ll finish on F/M/T, try Cleric/Ranger + unlock druid spells, maybe F/M/C.
As an option, you can diversify the game with spells from IWD, which are provided by SCS.
And finally, set the difficult sliders of the mod itself to maximum. It's will be ass burn i think.
The key to a succesfuld LoB run is finding the motivation and fun in it.
Most of the better players find that right way to balance the fun and motivating part of the chosem rules. It is not going to be fun all of the time, but thats where your motivation kicks in. So do what you feel like doing and pick the rules you like. So the best of luck with your runs, and always feel welcome to ask if you need advice. The combined knowledge of this site is a wonder to behold.
The key to a succesfuld LoB run is finding the motivation and fun in it.
Most of the better players find that right way to balance the fun and motivating part of the chosem rules. It is not going to be fun all of the time, but thats where your motivation kicks in. So do what you feel like doing and pick the rules you like. So the best of luck with your runs, and always feel welcome to ask if you need advice. The combined knowledge of this site is a wonder to behold.
I agree with the conclusion about knowledge. Well, about pleasure too. In some places you don’t want the entire gameplay to boil down to summoning monsters, but for now it’s 50/50.
Initially, I wanted to play through, so to speak, a frontal attack, and in the end - traps, stealth, summons) although this kind of gameplay is also interesting. Fortunately, it is slowly changing on the front.
Comments
First to the Thieves Guild. From there we receive information that one of the visitors to the secret brothel in the sewers has an invitation. We go there, kill him and his wife, get a bunch of loot and an invitation. THEY ARE VERY STRONG. The wand of paralysis will help.
We go to the Duke's castle with an invitation.
11.2. Duke's castle.
There will be a battle. All named NPCs must survive. Sarevok runs. And we are running after him.
12. THE LAST DANCE. STEP-BROTHER I'M STUCK IN THE TEMPLE OF BAAL.
The location is certainly gorgeous, gloomy. There is no need to fight the crowd of killers at the entrance to the temple. To the left of the temple entrance lies the best armor in the game - but we don't need it. We enter in Temple in stealth.
We go into a corner and spam monsters with the summoning wand. We provoke Sarevok to spend all his buffs. First, we send the summons to the upper left corner - thereby, they will be stuck in one place.
And from approximately the same position as in the screenshot, we begin to spam scrolls of the cloudkill and a wand of fire into the corner of the location.
We lure the skeletons away one by one, killing them in a crowd with a summoning wand. There is only one Sarevok left. And he is remarkably paralyzed by the wand. He Die. Game over.
Thank you) I’ll try to write out the entire SoD today
SIEGE OF DRAGONSPEAR.
To be honest, as far as I know, the supplement doesn't have very good reviews. In fairness, I myself would give it 6.5/7 out of 10. There are too many stuffy battles and without stealth I would not go through this in my life. Everywhere there are hordes of enemies of 10-15 units. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a closed, narrow space or an open location. Marasmus.
Otherwise, an interesting plot, side quests are much higher above those in BG1, more points of interest, pleasing to the eye graphics and setting, rich picture and contrast. Well, there will be 10-15 crashes for sure.
In any case, this is all lyrics, let's go towards great adventures.
1. CHAPTER VII. SAREVOK DEAD.
We speak with Ammon, take the quest, open the tomb in the north, take another quest from the mummy. At first, in any case, you will have to complete all the quests that we see. Rude rushing, like in BG1, will not work - the plot is linear, many fights are inevitable.
We fight a little with the enemies near the bridge, we get to the script, Porias appears, we agree to the deal, we get
exp for each unkilled person. Comfortable.
1.1. FLOOR BELOW. DUNGEON. STEALTH WILL NOT SAVE ME AGAIN?
It was around this moment that I realized exactly what SoD was.
Such hordes of enemies will be everywhere, without exception. This is actually a quick gain of experience, then everything is just stealth.
The problem is that in this expansion, the conditional bat skeletons have an innate True Sight. My stealth doesn't work.
But no one is stopping me from still moving in stealth + using Haste. Or lure out only bats, beat them in a crowd and move on.
And these mice, like almost all the undead in the expansion, turn me into Nick Vujicic when I try to hit them. And as far as I remember, they have a huge APR. Overall it will be fun)
It’s easier to skip all subsequent fights; this exp will be a HUGE waste of time and effort. It's not worth it.
We go west, negotiate with the mercenaries, open the door with the lever.
1.2. KORLAZS'S TOMB.
There are too many enemies. VERY.
My meta-brain came up with the idea of charming all enemies one by one with the Algerion cloak from STEALTH. Take them to a secluded corner and kill them with summons.
And so on until there are a minimum of enemies left. Korlazs is perfectly paralyzed by the wand.
We loot her room, turn in the mummy's quest, talk to Imoen and go upstairs.
P.S. I know that I missed a couple of quests and a secret. But overall, you can skip it; there’s nothing super important for me. Here's what I missed that is super important - I'll definitely tell you later)
2. BALDUR'S GATE.
The fact that he has changed is an understatement. Very beautiful, although it has become smaller in size. But it seems like a full-fledged living city.
We fight a little, then go down to the basement. We speak with the man who took our money + free the prisoner.
Let's go to Three Barrels for money. We do whatever we want (i mean quests) , we forgive the thieves, but we send them to prison. Delenda. Jaheira and Minsk (talk with all) We talk with Corwin about aristocrats.
We move to the Tavern. We get quests observation glasses (In the end, I never used them, although they are very important in a couple of places, for example in the coalition camp). Senna. We trade in the shop + sell everything unnecessary (except jewelry/gems).
We deal with the robbers, loot, and turn in the quest. We sleep and loot a box in the cellar. We agree with the Lady about provisions. We help two goners near
Flaming Fist. We speak with Tiax. We speak with Rashad. Lon. We speak with the captain. Imoen, stranger, Sky.
Essentially, we do everything we see and what we can reach. There's nothing complicated here, just regular social quests.
Before setting off on the main adventure, we buy a BOTTLESS BAG from Belegarm. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT.
3. CHAPTER VIII. WORLD MAP AVAILABLE.
The first step is to complete the Teleria quest. As a reward we get a good summon, which will be useful in the only essentially difficult battle in the game, which is truly difficult and can take many hours due to this complexity - DEFENSE OF THE COALITION CAMP. This artifact for summoning the Golem is vital for everyone who does not have a Mage in their class. As well as a couple more similar artifacts.
We speak with all named NPC. We sell everything we have to the merchant near the house, steal it back, and recharge the wands. We buy a wand of fire.
We loot the house, communicate with the barker, and stop Baeloth from organizing barbaric battles.
There are a couple of spider squads in the location - they give you a lot of experience. We can farm this.
3.1. DWARVEN DIG SITE.
We speak with the dwarf at the entrance, take the quest. We help the others inside, talk to them, return to the dwarf at the entrance - we persuade him to return. We save the giant in the north of the location. There is no point in cleaning the location completely. Go ahead. Towards dozens of reboots.
3.2. REPOSITORY OF UNDEATH.
This was the first call. A bell called - I’m not releasing this crap, I’ll probably skip this mod and import the character, won’t take the challenge and play for my own pleasure. But I didn't give up. It’s more likely that my meta-brain didn’t give up. He and his crazy ideas, which somehow miraculously always work, did not let me give up.....
These were my first attempts to break through a horde of undead, which inflicts HOLD or PETRIFICATION on impact. If my memory serves me right, there are slightly less than HUNDRED enemies here in this location.
Multiply this by BETTER CALL HELPS FROM SCS and get constant reinforcements from other rooms.
Okay, the first two rooms can be cleaned using standard methods - great malison, webs, slow, glitterdust, fireballs from the wand on top and spam of summons from the wand. Further BETTER CALL HELPS works very strongly.
Another option is a wand of polymorph and hold undead.
It is advisable, by some miracle, to kill as many undead as possible in the third room, in the center of the location, without ultimately disturbing the rest. By the way, this is what she looks like:
This is difficult, but thanks to the combination described above and constant re-entering the location with rest, it is achievable. The hardest part is yet to come.
Let's go to the northern room and aggro this simply HUGE horde of undead, which we'll probably have to fight all day in real life.
We distract them with the summoning rod, try to grab all the quest items + use the throne and run away. First, it is advisable to drink an acceleration potion and use a mirror image.
This is what the room looks like:
As you can see, fighting here for the sake of experience is definitely a nervous breakdown.
There are essentially three steps left.
We go into a diagonal room with columns and a riddle. On stealth. Aggro everyone in this room to yourself, distract them with a summoning rod and two webs, if desired. We use the columns in the correct order AS FAST as possible - Winter - 3, autumn - 1, summer - 4, spring - 2. Access to the main boss - the Lich Coldheart will open.
It is important to activate the cut-scene and run away from there to the dwarves for help.
We talk to the main dwarf, tell everything, if we don’t have enough charisma to convince, he will attack us. Fortunately, we helped his friend the giant and he will take our side. By collective belief, we receive from him essentially a one-shot artifact against liches, which will allow us to remove all buffs from him and impose a swarm of insects on top. Essentially the lich will turn into a mannequin.
Now comes the hardest part...
We have two rooms left with the undead, that's about 30-40 units. On stealth we run into the room in front of the Lich. We distract them with the summoning rod, and take the summons themselves as far away from the room as possible. We run into the room with the lich and close the door behind us. You need to have time to click through the dialogue with him, put the artifact received from the dwarves on him and kill him.
Until this moment, it is advisable to cover yourself with all the buffs that you have in order to kill the lich quickly, we have VERY LITTLE time. We need to manage to simultaneously kill the lich and take the Phylactery from the room nearby (essentially his soul), at the same time, so that the horde of undead next to us does not have time to kill the summon that is distracting them. Hard.
By the way, this is what a lich looks like:
I wonder what I would do without this dwarven artifact? After all, he has spells of 7-8-9 levels.
In addition, it is advisable to try to open the door to the fiery room while in stealth and escape. Just open it, you don’t need to do anything else.
The hardest thing is to run out of the lich's room with the phylactery and not get stuck in the horde of undead. If it works, we run into the fire room and throw the phylactery into the fire. Again, it's important not to get stuck in the undead while we're trying to run out of these narrow passages. That's All. One of the two most difficult quests in the game has been completed. I spent about six to seven hours on this one. Despite the fact that I play at 90 FPS.
P.S. If you want to remain a healthy and adequate person and not get a STROKE while defending the coalition camp, this quest MUST BE COMPLETED.
You will get very dense and strong allies, which I personally used in the third wave. Without them there is nothing to catch there.
IMPORTANT. On the other hand, if you don't mind tarnishing your reputation and spoiling your morals, you can side with the Lich Coldheart...
I haven’t tried it, but based on the entries on BG Wikipedia, you need to get all the dwarven necklaces in the previous location and kill the rest. As a result, instead of dwarves, you will receive COLDHART'S LICH AND AN UNDEAD TROOP, which will help you defend the coalition camp. I wonder if they are stronger than the dwarves? Probably yes.
And then I realized that the entire add-on was built entirely on scripts. All you need to do is fight a little and the script with the cut-scene of Caelar’s appearance will work. I saw on YouTube how people spent hours fighting with this very strong squad, killed it outside the script trigger zone and the cut scene did not appear. A spectacular sight.
4. CHAPTER IX. FOREST OF TROLL CLAWS.
We steal loot from the orcs on the right, help refugees in the north, and Jaheira in the east. We go to the cave in the northwest. We loot and leave. We do everything in stealth, according to the classics.
Are there any arachnophobes in the chat? I have a gift for you.
4.1. WYVERN FOREST.
We completely loot the dragon's lair on stealth, just like Bilbo Baggins, and by the way, here's a reference:
We also pass through the Bugbears' lair. We loot everything in stealth.
And then I realized that the entire add-on was built entirely on scripts. All you need to do is fight a little and the script with the cut-scene of Caelar’s appearance will work. I saw on YouTube how people spent hours fighting with this very strong squad, killed it outside the script trigger zone and the cut scene did not appear. A spectacular sight.
4. CHAPTER IX. FOREST OF TROLL CLAWS.
We steal loot from the orcs on the right, help refugees in the north, and Jaheira in the east. We go to the cave in the northwest. We loot and leave. We do everything in stealth, according to the classics.
Are there any arachnophobes in the chat? I have a gift for you.
4.1. WYVERN FOREST.
We completely loot the dragon's lair on stealth, just like Bilbo Baggins, and by the way, here's a reference:
We also pass through the Bugbears' lair. We loot everything in stealth.
\m/ _ - LAIR OF THE CULTISTS - _ \m/
There will be at least 2-3 very difficult and interesting battles. And a lot of experience.
We talk to the woman in the cage and get information. Let's go first to Zaitar.
He is EXTREMELY STRONG. But my Meta-Brain dealt with it very easily. As it turns out, he transforms perfectly into a squirrel:
Zaitar: security, protect me!
Very comical, considering that I managed to turn him into a squirrel before the dialogue.
Security, protect me! And then pet him and give him some hamster food! And turn on Chip 'n Dale, I'm stressed!
Here we got away with minimal expenditure of resources and nerves. It will be more interesting later.
4.3. BATTLE WITH SUPER MEGA OCTOPUS-ANKEG.
Nifilid... This is a huge colossus, as I understand it, it has the skeleton and behavior of Ankheg. In addition, this is a high-level magician who spams Mordekainen's swords, up to 5 of them calmly. In addition, due to behavior like Ankheg - he is constantly underground, it is difficult to cast spells on him. And in addition, it is UNREALISTIC to dodge the battle with him. He is scripted to jump after us like a graboid throughout the location.
It also leaves behind poisonous puddles with high damage. In general, we distract Mordekainen’s swords with our summons and try to catch him after a pause when he is on the surface. Greater Malison + Wand of Polymorph. This is the only way he dies, no other way. You'll have to spend some time rebooting, but what can you do, there's no way to avoid the battle.
You should have seen my eyes when I saw how much experience they gave for it! 20000!!!
4.4. MAIN BASTARD AND HIS COMPANY.
The last battle remains - Illithid and his company. We take them into a narrow corridor, block the passage with meat from summons from the wand, throw all the debuffs we have, Greater Malison, slow, 2 web, glitterdust, hold person. We periodically refresh the meat, paralyze them with a rod one at a time and kill them. All.
P.S. I forgot to mention that if we free the occultist from the cage, I don’t remember whether she will give us a key or information. But it’s better to release him like the others.
After moving to another location and resting, there will be an encounter - we help the green dragon. And one more, but I don't remember which one.
4.5. BOARESKYR BRIDGE.
We go straight to the liberators, the rest will come later, although there are many points of interest. Here we act as a double agent. We steal everything, save Dorn +6k exp.
If we give away the guard stone, it will be a bad deed. Let's use it ourselves!
4.6. BRIDGEFORT.
We speak with Khalid. We speak with Winan Hess last. We're skipping Nira. We speak with Hess. We put three bodies on the altar. Let's run to Wichand,
We select the scroll and go back. We steal everything from Tirrim. For myself
jewelry from corpses. We find Omori's corpse, kill the zombies, take the chain and head. We'll take down Junia, but it's advisable to rest before that.
We speak with Khalid, return, notify the Flaming Fist. To have a dialogue with Otilda, you need to scroll through the option of surrendering the fortress. Shit scripts again.
4.7. SIEGE OF BRIDGEFORT.
In such a difficult challenge, ALL ALLIES will die 100%. As usual, we throw a ton of our magical debuffs, spam wands, paralyze, kill. Personally, even this wasn’t enough for me - I had to aggro several enemies on myself and kill them quietly.
The second battle in this location near the barrels on the bridge - we do it the same way.
5. CHAPTER X. COALITION CAMP.
Waizahb - fence good trader. We sell him everything we stole. Reloading the wands.
Quests: Unusual cold. Help with training for beginners. We speak with Marshall. Safana - Traitor. Skye's disappearance. Barrel of Boom and Potion of Horror at the entrance. Wilhelmina.
5.1. BLOODY GROVE.
We talk to Onorot, we don’t go into the basement, there’s nothing interesting there. We find the scroll of the weak earth elemental in the upper right corner. Lol, it will definitely be useful to us. We kill the basilisk, give back the claw.
5.2. UNDERGROUND RIVER. OUTER LANDS.
Potion of invulnerability in the north. We become the leader of the ogres and win them for friendship + reinforcements. We help druids through dispel. They will help us in battle
through the gate to the Underground River. We go for a fight, open the gate using stealth and go inside. There is no point in fighting, there are TOO many opponents. SoD seriously sins and begins to infuriate.
5.3. UNDERGROUND RIVER. INSIDE.
We put on the Stone Vine. We’ll take down the mage, we won’t take out the water elementals, and there’s no need to. We speak with Nereida. Now we have friends among the water nation (it doesn't affect ANYTHING).
Place the barrel. We speak with Irenicus. We go south and put the enchanted seed in the tree to the Dark Druids. Stealth is good, but we will be stuck between the tree and invisible enemies. Teleportation Field will save us.
I didn’t complete the quest to free the dragon; I just couldn’t handle the fight with a bunch of high-level magicians.
We go north, to the entrance to the next location. Aggro the guards, open the gate, drink the invisibility potion and go further.
5.4. LAIR OF THE SHINING ONES.
We free Slugg and get information. Let's go to the priest. You can recharge everything from him through theft. It’s easier to sell absolutely everything and just steal it back necessary. Let's help Rhonda. We look for wine, give it to the ogres, and go upstairs.
5.5. DRAGONSPEER CASTLE BASEMENT.
Important. Before entering the location, we use stealth. So, after the dialogue with Belben, we will not be attacked and we will have a maneuver to move.
He doesn't see us. Let's help Bjarne. We find the key. We free Daeros. Before coming here we buy scrolls
great restoration from the priest (Looks like there were traps with level drain) . We loot the first chest, there are scrolls of buffs and debuffs that are important for us. We infect the water, west, warehouse, in the corner of the barrel.
We drink a potion of protection from magic and loot the chest with the crown. Let's go. A good Crown, we use it to remember the spells before the main battle.
We use stealth again and leave. We may get stuck in one place again - at the exit from LAIR OF THE SHINING ONES. Teleportation Field will save us.
5.6. DEAD MAN'S LAND.
Negotiations, no matter what they choose, there will be violence. On the way, we'll stop by the entrance of Dragonspear Castle and save Skye.
ONLY AFTER I completed BG1+SoD, with the help of BG Wikipedia, I realized that I had missed some of the quests with important items that would have helped me forgive this HARD stage at this difficulty level. I think it's important to outline what exactly I missed. WITH THESE THINGS EVERYTHING WILL BE MUCH EASIER. YOU CAN AVOID HEART ATTACK AND STROKE:
1. STONE ALLY.
From Teleria quest. I made a note about it after finishing it. In fact, I didn't do it at all. On this difficulty, this golem can tank for a VERY long time. MUSTHAVE.
2. AMULET OF COOL SUMMONING ANKHEGS.
They can be called beyond the barricades, into choke points, into places that no one can reach, eventually hordes of enemies will aggro on them and will not be able to reach them.
Like HERE.
THIS IS A SCREENSHOT FROM MY TESTS. I TESTED IF A CLERIC/RANGER WITH DRUID SPELLS UNLOCKED COULD DEFEND A COALITION CAMP, THIS IS NOT A CHEAT, I WENT THE GAME ON F/M/T:
A friend of mine from discord and I were arguing about whether Priest could defend the coalition camp in such conditions. The cleric of Lathander failed. Basically the same as Warrior/Cleric. But the Cleric/Ranger did. This was the best battle in my entire experience in video games. Someday I’ll tell you about this experience as a bonus, later.
In the end it should have turned out like in the screenshot. Summoning ankhegs ADVANCE beyond the barricades, the first wave begins - they run towards the barricades and cannot overcome them - essentially ankhegs behind textures. But everything is legal and fair.
3. RING OF SUMMONING MEPHITS. They are not very strong, but they can drop 4 at a time. Like tanking meat if you have limited resources (anyone except a mage, the mage has 4 summoning wands of 100 charges, he doesn’t care at all). As far as I remember, it recharges after resting.
4. MYCONID SUMMONING ARTIFACT.
If a 1d4 die rolls a 3 or 4, they can tank long enough to cause chaos with their confusion attacks. A VERY useful summon.
5. DETONATION ARROWS.
Probably the main thing I forgot about.
Essentially a fireball from a shot. And I stood there like an idiot and spammed 1 fireball per round. But with arrows, count four.
You will say that you still need to hit them, have a high THAC0. I'll tell you a secret that shocked me - THEY ALWAYS HIT.
4 FIREBALLS PER ROUND.
6. POTION OF ABSORBPTION.
Almost the entire first wave, the entire third and half of the fourth wave consist of crushing damage to us and our allies and our summons. The potion gives us -10 additional armor from the crusher. I used it, but it was of little use.
BUT.
But I didn't know that it STACKS WITH ITSELF. -20 AC for two game hours. When I tested this on Cleric/Ranger I was even able to fight enemies for miles and tank for a very long time. + full healing from the durlag cup.
It was much easier with two potions. Drink both at once, they will no longer be useful to you after this battle.
6.1. JUGGLING BELTS.
Not a very important point, but it can help - juggling. Juggling belts of resistance to physical damage.
Periodically, for min-max, I juggled belts for suitable damage. In the fourth wave, a suitable belt was worn against the archers. On the first one, I still preferred against the slashing, because it was already -20 AC from the crushing damage. And so on.
7. DEN OF THIEVES QUEST.
A quest, if completed correctly, we will have an additional squad of thieves. I didn't complete it. Alas.
NOW keep in mind that I defended the F/M/T camp WITHOUT these 8 things.
I believe that I had the right to do this. After all, I completed BG1 + SoD for the FIRST TIME. Fortunately, the experience of playing BG2 and isometric RPGs in particular gave me the knowledge and experience to pass BG1 + SoD right from this tough challenge.
To be honest, the expansion itself is ABSOLUTELY NOT BALANCED FOR PLAYING WITH LEGACY OF BHAAL.
In addition, this quest is full of idiotic scripts and logical errors that ruin attempts to complete the quest without wasting tons of time.
6.1. First of all, there is no point in setting up skull traps in advance. THEY WILL NOT WORK WHEN THE FIRST WAVE APPEARS. Although no, they will work. But if you fail to repel the first wave the first time, the skull traps will not work the next time you reload. Idiocy.
6.2. Secondly, between waves there may be no time for preparation at all. That is, the wave ended, I talked to the main NPC and A SECOND LATER THE MESSENGER RUNNED AND ACTIVATED THE SECOND WAVE. Sometimes there was no time to rest with Dosya, not to mention new summons, updating buffs and potions. And it was like this all the time. I had to run around the camp without activating the dialogue script. Complete nonsense.
SCREENSHOT FROM MY TESTS, IT DOES NOT RELATE TO THE CHALLENGE. Conversation with the main NPC, a second - the messenger comes running. I didn't have time to do anything.:
6.2.1. But it happened the other way around: you did everything you needed between wave and waited 20 seconds for the messenger to come running. The summons have already lost half their life time, the buffs are running out and the messenger comes running. Shit.
6.3. Third. Archers with fire arrows are always taken to the first wave. Because we will have to fight trolls, we need fire, everything is logical. But why do archers who are in a camp under siege, where there are tons of shells, arrows and bolts in barrels around, have SO FEW of them. SO LITTLE THAT WITHIN A 2 MINUTES AFTER THE WAVE STARTED, THEY RUNNED TO FIGHT HUGE TROLLS AND OGRES IN CLOSE COMBAT. WITH DAGGERS. FUCK.
6.4. FOURTH. If you fog up properly and after the wave you still have living soldiers, they will disappear. They will not go to the fire, wait out the remaining waves and fight in the final fourth. They will simply disappear. Your work will not be rewarded in any way. After many hours of trying, I still had live shooters and wizard killers. They disappeared immediately. They were not in the fourth wave. Shit.
6.5. FIFTH. If at least one enemy soldier runs behind you, being blinded, in panic, confused, under the influence of a berserker, a swarm of insects, it doesn’t matter - he activates the script and dialogue, saying that our defenses have been broken through, we retreat to the fire. THIS WILL LAUNCH THE OTHER THREE WAVES IN ALTERNATIVE RIGHT INTO OUR FACE. WELL WHAT THE CRAP. HOW COULD THIS BE INVENTED? BECAUSE OF ONE ENEMY. BECAUSE OF ONE THING.
SCREENSHOT FROM MY TESTS, IT DOES NOT RELATE TO THE CHALLENGE.
I still had a few enemies left to kill in the first wave. One of them, in a panic because of a swarm of insects, without which Cleric/Ranger cannot defense on any of the waves, run behind me and launched another idiotic script. Another reload and wasted time:
Otherwise, these were the most grandiose and interesting battles. But the scripts and serious logical errors sometimes confused me and really pissed me off. Fortunately, after defending the camp, it was a very easy hike.
7. DEFENSE. 4 WAVES OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. BUT WHAT IS MORE OF THIS?
To be fair, on the day I got to this quest, it seemed to me that this was definitely a skip. If I managed to get out in the Repository of Undeath, here it seemed to me that it was simply UNREAL. I spent about five or six hours exactly. But when I succeeded, I certainly got high. But don’t forget about stupid scripts and logical errors - without them I would have spent three times less time.
7.1. PREPARATION.
We can talk to the only merchant available to us before defending. We have 30 seconds, otherwise he will run away. It is better to buy all the fighter potions that he has, heroism, power, giant strength, absorption, magic potions against magic and with a guaranteed saving throw. The last potion on the list will be VERY useful.
7.2. FIRST WAVE. ARCHERS AGAINST TROLLS.
IN ADVANCE we summon 5 monsters from the summoning wand directly to the respawn of the first wave. This will distract them from us while we cast debuffs. In this order:
1. WEB.
2. GREATER MALISON.
3. UPDATE TANKING MEAT WITH SUMMON WAND.
4. WEB.
5. SLOW.
6. MEAT.
7. CLOUDKILL + CLOUDKILL AGAIN.
8. SPAM THE WAND OF FIRE. RENEWING THE MEAT.
There is no point in feeling sorry for allied shooters. They are stupid idiots. Who takes so few arrows with him to defend the camp? In any case, they will disappear in a script after the battle, even if they remain alive. We don't feel sorry for anyone.
In general, after this list of spells, no one will remain alive.
7.3. SECOND WAVE. WIZARD SLAYERS AGAINTS HIGH-LEVEL MAGES.
The list is basically the same. Only we should buff ourselves in advance for close combat and drink a potion of protection from magic. So there is a chance that we will not be dispelled.
And the second potion, no less important - which gives us a guaranteed victory when checking a saving throw. It will allow us, being HASTED, to run through the web and not get entangled. The freedom potion in this regard cancels our HASTE.
In addition, due to the guaranteed wins on saving throws, we do not take damage from two cloudkills. Cool idea?
We don’t feel sorry for anyone, neither our own nor others. Even if one of the allies remains alive, they will still disappear. Forget it, don’t skimp on manpower.
7.4. THIRD WAVE. DWARFS ARE AGAINST APPEARING TO BE THE FATEST CLERICS IN THE WORLD.
Look what the game offers us, to be honest, I was shocked by the amount:
They all have 200-300 HP, heavy armor, shields, blunt weapons, cleric buffs, sanctuary, they constantly spam mass healing and silence at me.
The first attempts were in vain. The enemies are TOO fat. After some time, I managed to kill the main boss of this wave right away and somehow it became much easier. Most likely she had major buffs. I spent the most time on this wave.
Again, the first attempts were accompanied by the complete erasure of me and my allies into dust.
Next, I tried to cast webs in advance, at the spawn location, from stealth.
In the end, 100% of all allies die.
I'm left alone against 20-30 enemies. Luckily they were stuck like a sandwich:
If you bring them to such a position as in the screenshot, when they are all together next to each other, then you will simply spam the summoning wand, then one fireball from the fire wand, then again the summoning wand, right at the end of the summoners’ life.
This sequence was just enough to make them get distracted by the summons, throw a fireball and refresh the tanking meat and throw the ball again. As a result, the script is triggered and the liberators escape. We won!
P.S.
GRIMGORE. To be honest, I didn’t understand who it was. his model was simply huge compared to the others. A huge knight with a shield and flail, he looked intimidating. He also liked to cast Blade Barrier + Sanctuary. Damn lamer!
In fact, if you kill the magician first on this wave, whose name, if translated from the Russian localization - BOLD PUNCHER, then it will be much better. This beast can throw Insect Plague at our army. This is RELOAD 100%
Then everything is very easy, you can hit the keyboard with your face and you will complete this add-on to the end.
In the key battle, we just stand and hand out buffs/debuffs. There will be enough of them for our army to win. We can open a cage with trolls for the sake of a funny dialogue. We can challenge Ashatiel to a duel.
She can be won easily - we just call summons and wait for her to fail her saving throw against paralysis. By the way, as far as I understand, she is Deva, like an HLA priest.
8.1. DRAGONSPEAR CASTLE.
Let's go inside. There will be no fighting. We watch the cut-scene and go down to .....
9. CHAPTER XII. AVERNUS. NINE HELLS.
9.1. BRIDGE.
We skip the first floor. Let's go straight to the second one. It is advisable to get rid of the first pack of demons. It will be hard. You need to divide the battle into two, take some away with summons, debuff others and kill them with one charge of the paralysis wand.
TRICK.
The battle will be very long. The only way to get a save is to run away from the location and return. This way we will at least have autosave.
Again, we kill them one by one, they are very fat, preferably with a wand of paralysis. Next, we go to the door, skip the cut-scene, talk to the demon, accept his challenge, run away to the beginning of the location. Again we divide the battle, again we kill everyone one by one with the rod of summoning and paralysis. It is enough to leave 2-3 and the demon will say that we have passed the test and can choose a reward. Thank God, the location was too stuffy before the final.
By the way, we won't need the reward.
9.2. ELEVATOR.
Quite an atmospheric location actually. But I would cut the number of elevator battles in half.
We drink ALL POTIONS OF HEROISM.
I hope the fact that I threw the turnip juice out of my inventory won't ruin the boss fight for me.
Well, other potions as well. We hang Keel's helmet on our head. Durlag Cup. We use the elevator. Let's fight. After the last fight on the elevator, we update the buffs and potions, and put the scroll of breaking through magical resistance into quick access. We give ourselves resistance Abjuration school of magic (the final boss, after talking with us, will immediately try to dispel us).
Boss from the first Icewind Dale.....
We're playing solo, so we give him Caelar. In return, he does us a favor and kills a high-level mage ally. It's better for us.
Belhifet...1100 health, armor value and THAC0 on LoB are simply cosmic. Spam demon summons every few rounds.
I didn’t know what to do at all. My summons, with whom I fought in the elevator, did not go with me to Belhifet’s lair. The boss sees through stealth.
There is no way to defeat him in a fair melee fight, despite my 300 health and a bunch of potions I drank.
For the third time in this expansion, I’m starting to think that, in principle, I can skip the challenge. I really lost it this time. If in the Repository of Undeath I still had some ideas, in the coalition camp too, then here there are SIMPLY NO IDEAS.
BUT I REMEMBERED HIM. HE HELPED ME THE WHOLE GAME. SAVED ME A LOT OF TIME AGAINST SUPER STRONG BOSSES....
MEET THE ROD OF TRANSFORMATION INTO A SQUIRREL!
You say, Universe, are you an idiot? I'll answer you - no, I'm a genius.
10.1. APOGEE OF THE HUMAN META-BRAIN.
We reduce Belhifet's resistance to magic by 20% in order to have at least some chance of reducing his saving throws with the help of Greater Malison.
We use Greater Malison.
We use Wand of Polymorph. We see this.
His health dropped from 1100 to 5. Why? This is how the wand works. Belhifet CANNOT be turned into a squirrel, he is immune to transformation. But....
An explanation of this miracle from knowledgeable people from this forum:
""The standard demon/devil immunity item grants immunity to polymorph effects. However, the wand isn't just a polymorph effect; it's several effects combined. In addition to the actual polymorph, the wand sets base AC to 10, gives 100% casting failure for wizard and priest spells, sets maximum HP to 5, sets strength to 3, and overrides the target's weapon with the squirrel weapon that deals 1d2 slashing damage.
Unless there's a specific immunity in play, all of those other effects will apply if you can get the wand through his other resistances. The demon immunity item does grant that immunity to Polymorph Other, but not to the want.
One caveat on that HP adjustment - the game won't let any creature have lower maximum hit points than its level. Belhifet would actually end up at 5/N hit points, where N is his level.""
Ultimately, Belhifet is left with health units and dies from any spitting. In my case, twice in a row - from my own summons. Here's the evidence:
He received 9 piercing damage from his own summon. The last line describes his dying cry. I think you recognized the font and color)
That's all. A little ingenuity and everything worked out. The same cleric, by the way, one-shots Belhifet with Slay Living.
To be fair, I don't see anything prejudicial in my method of killing the boss. There is a player in the hall of fame of this challenge who unlocked the summon limit in order to complete SoD as a Lathander cleric. So my method of killing Belkhfet compared to this... is just child's play, not a cheat/exploit.
11. CHAPTER XIII. PLOT TWISTS. END OF THE GAME.
Several walks, plot twists and text. In principle, we can import the character.
P.S. In conclusion, I would like to say that this addition had the chance to be excellent, and not just average. If it weren’t for the constant crashes, one of which I caught in the LAST VIDEO SCENE, and a constant crash. Logical errors, disgusting scripts, the number of enemies is enough to upgrade one character to HLA, or even higher!
Someone told me that the add-on was made inspired by SCS, supposedly a more hardcore add-on. But still there is a measure for everything. I didn't see any complexity here. It’s just very stuffy and crap with huge packs of enemies. It was as if a child had run through a sand castle and left behind a pile of sand made up of enemies.
BUT in the end I liked it overall. I would give this add-on a 7/10
Forgot to mention the mods used, besides SCS:
1. Unfinished Business. I use this too in BG2. Legal cut content that was in the game.
2. Dragonspear UI. I use this too in BG2. It is more convenient and beautiful + makes the picture better.
3. EEEx + Bubble Spell Menu. I ise this too in BG2. A new, convenient spell panel and viewing of applied buffs and debuffs on yourself and the enemy.
In general, everything is legal, without cheats, WEIDU.log is saved, there are saves, I can post it if you want, if you don’t believe me
ANYWAY, HALF the way has been completed. Let's go to BG2....
With Love, yours Mr. Universe.
After finishing this, I regretted that I kept putting it off. + 500,000 experience at the start of BG2 will help a lot. Additionally, this playthrough opened my eyes to the true gameplay of Baldur's Gate. It was cool.
Ditto.
Since the button is not here any more
I need some information from you. I see in the hall of fame you have a run on Totemic Druid18 dual to Fighter.
Can you share how you loop exp in BG 2?
I want to try avenger 18-20/fighter through earth elemental form next time.
one of the infamous XP loops is the wand of wonder (has a chance of petrifying that cannon be stopped) on the red dragon. It gives 64.000 XP pr. try. The wand has 50 charges, which should yield 15-18 succesfull times the said xp. The wand can be recharged for further XP.
Another one is a place in the unseeing rye quest, where sleeping can spawn a 9.000 xp Gauths that the shield of balduran can help you with.
Thank you very much for the information) Of course, I’m not sure that I will still do this, because as my tests have shown, Avenger 18-20/Fighter is not particularly strong, but still there is not much choice for replaying this challenge.
There is a learning experience in playing the game to an end. You have to find solutions amd think of strategy that might help you in the next game. So stick to it
I off course always end up with restartis, and scrap my charname - so I never practice what I preach….
Well, so far I’m happy with everything - my F/M/T copes with everything in BG2. I even had to install a tweak that nerfed Mislead and Project Image - these spells are too strong and break the game. In general, the magician looks like a god compared to the cleric. So my next playthrough will be Cleric/Ranger 100% with Druid spells unlocked. Purely for fun.
It should be fun. I dont touch anything that doesnt get 1/2 par at level 7 and 13 so I get you….
There are many interesting combinations in the hall of fame, but I would not dare to repeat them. My time and nerves are precious to me) I prefer the proven option. In addition, I’m not sure that they completed everything without third-party mods, such as the Lathander cleric from the hall of fame - with unlock summon limit. And such things allow you to generally hit the keyboard with your face and complete the game with ease.
Therefore, I’ll finish on F/M/T, try Cleric/Ranger + unlock druid spells, maybe F/M/C.
As an option, you can diversify the game with spells from IWD, which are provided by SCS.
And finally, set the difficult sliders of the mod itself to maximum. It's will be ass burn i think.
Most of the better players find that right way to balance the fun and motivating part of the chosem rules. It is not going to be fun all of the time, but thats where your motivation kicks in. So do what you feel like doing and pick the rules you like. So the best of luck with your runs, and always feel welcome to ask if you need advice. The combined knowledge of this site is a wonder to behold.
I agree with the conclusion about knowledge. Well, about pleasure too. In some places you don’t want the entire gameplay to boil down to summoning monsters, but for now it’s 50/50.
Initially, I wanted to play through, so to speak, a frontal attack, and in the end - traps, stealth, summons) although this kind of gameplay is also interesting. Fortunately, it is slowly changing on the front.